When I was still young, I believed I was a very religious person. I loved to go to church and hear the word of God, it felt very good to be in church and it always felt like God was right there beside me. In my church when the service was over the preacher would call for all sinners to come to the altar and pray for their sins and join the church. I would fight an inner struggle with myself, saying I’m not ready yet, but I could feel God pulling me towards the altar. The reason I wasn’t ready yet was because my church had rules about TV, dancing, roller-skating, gambling, cruising in a car, cutting your hair short, makeup, pants, shorts, smoking, stealing, drinking, and going to the movies. They frown upon all these things and believed it was a sin. I was still young and wasn’t ready to give up some of these things yet. I told myself when I grew older and got married then I would be ready. I didn’t want to give up smoking, dancing, roller-skating, cutting and curling my hair, or wearing blue jeans just yet.
As I wasn’t a model child at school neither was I all that good out of it. Every morning, my girlfriend and I would stop at the Company store on our way to school and I would steal a five-cent cupcake. When we’d get outside I would give her half of it. I was the one who would steal because I always got away with it even though Rita, the store clerk, would search me. She never found the cake cause I would put it up my coat sleeve. Rita would search my pockets and pat down my body; all the while telling me she knew I took a cake, that she saw me take it but since she couldn’t find it on my person she would have to let us go.
This one time, our school had a religious revival for seven days and I went to church all seven of those days. On the last day, I went to the altar and got saved. The next morning, my girlfriend and I stopped in the store and as usual I stole a cupcake. When we got out of the store and I went to give her half, I suddenly remembered I was a Christian now. I should have never taken the cake. Filled with shame, I went to throw my half away when my girlfriend said it was no use, I had already sinned and was no longer a Christian so I might as well eat the cake. I told her I couldn’t eat the cake, she scoffed at me saying I should to give it to her since she would have no trouble eating it. It bothered me for the rest of the day how I had forgotten I had joined the church and out of habit had stole the cake. It had taken me at least two years to go to the altar in the first place and then, in less than 24 hours, I blew it. I hadn’t even lasted whole day.
When I went to sleep that night I dreamt of Jesus. He was holding out both of his hands telling me it was okay, He understood, and I was to come back to church. In my dream, I ran away from him; crying “no” it wasn’t all right what I had done. I didn’t feel worthy of his forgiveness. I did go back to church as much as I did before but I never went up to the altar again.
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